Generally, Power Line Communication (PLC) is the latest technique transmitting voice or data at a rapid speed through a power line in a house, an office, a building, a factory and so on. The PLC may be applied to various fields such as superhigh-speed Internet communication, Internet phone, home networking system, home automation and remote metering system just by connecting a plug of a computer to a power source without using LAN or a telephone.
Among them, the automation system using PLC connects various electronic equipments such as TV, audio, refrigerator, washer, boiler and lamp/heating devices as well as information equipments such as PC, notebook and PDA to a network through an electric outlet. Thus, the home automation system may remotely control an on/off operation or operating states of various electronic equipments together with data transmission between information terminals.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional power supply control system using PLC.
Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional power supply control system 100 using PLC includes a repeater 2 for recognizing a remote control signal transmitted from a predetermined control signal transmitter 1 and an ID number of an electronic equipment corresponding to the remote control signal, a power line signal transmitter 3 for converting the ID number of the electronic equipment and the remote control signal recognized by the repeater 2 into a predetermined data signal and interfacing with a power line signal of AC power to transmit the data signal, and a PLC unit 6 for comparing the data signal with the ID number transmitted from the power line signal transmitter 3 and controlling the operation of a relay 5 included in each equipment to selectively cut off the power supplied to the electronic equipment.
In the conventional power supply control system 100, the relay 5 for controlling power supply is included in each electronic equipment, and the PLC unit 6 is installed out of the electronic equipment or separately from the electronic equipment, thereby causing troublesomeness in handling a lead wire for connecting the relay 5 to the PLC unit 6. In addition, since it is required to mount the relay 5 in the electronic equipment 4 and install the PLC unit 6 separately, the conventional power supply control system 100 is complicated to install, thus results in increase of the cost required for an electronic equipment adopting the system.